adrug used to treat gastrointestinal stromal tumors (gist)that have not responded to treatment with imatinib mesylate(gleevec). sutent is alsoused to treat advanced kidney cancer and is being studiedin the treatment of other types of cancer. it is a type oftyrosine kinase inhibitor, a type of vascular endothelialgrowth factor (vegf) receptor inhibitor, and a type ofangiogenesis inhibitor. also called su011248, su11248, sunitinib, and sunitinib malate.